The Fear Of Freedom

(This is the last 'historical' piece I'll be copying over to this blog. It was written this past 4th of July. I found it more than a little exciting when President Bush used basically the exact same words regarding the fear of freedom in his acceptance speech at the convention. Yes, it's long, but I think it's worthwhile.)

Things today seem rather grim for freedom-loving Americans. Bad news is everywhere, if one sticks to the major news outlets. Indeed, if one were to gauge the state of the nation via the popular U.S. and foreign press, you see nothing but black. The economy is bad. We’re fighting a hopeless and unnecessary war with Iraq. Terrorism continues to climb despite our efforts. If only we’d stop to listen to these people and try to figure out why they hate us so much, we could stop the violence. We’re currently being led by a man who stole the election using the judicial branch of government and is only interested in filling the pocketbooks of his friends and gaining more power for himself. Oh, and he’s also a complete chimp of an idiot who is being controlled by his vice president and big oil.

I don’t believe any of those concepts. Not a single one. The facts stand against them. But if that’s the case, why is that the view being laid in very thick layers upon most of America? America has enemies, from within and without, that’s why. Some are just that: enemies who wish us to be destroyed as a nation and dismantled as a people. Others are misguided souls who mean well but have become so wrapped up in the many pits of deceit hidden in society today that they have not only lost their way, but in some cases their ability to reason.

I’m going to take some time here to examine these groups. On this, our Independence Day, I’m going to demonstrate that American is still strong, that these enemies can be defeated from within and without, that liberty’s bell will continue to ring as long as right-minded, freedom-loving Americans choose to let it. These enemies fear freedom. It frightens them to their core. Let’s talk for a little bit about what they’re so afraid of, and how that fear will be their undoing.

The Islamofascists

Clearly our primary enemy in the world today both in numbers and intent is the Islamofascists. I call them that because it fits. Foreign policy wonk Victor Davis Hanson wrote a great story this week called ‘Fantasyland’ where he digs into the ‘Arab Street’ and reveals this enemy for what it is: the latest incarnation of fascism attempting to rival that of the infamous Nazi party.

Thus the proper exegesis for (radical Islam’s) violence must account for exactly why and how it is that Middle Eastern, mostly Arab Muslim, youths kill Westerners worldwide—and yet Africans, South Americans, and Asians impoverished usually do not. It might just be that the stew of American appeasement, past Cold War support for illicit and corrupt grandees like the Royal Family, too much oil money too fast, Soviet-style statist remnants, endemic anti-Semitism, and Islam itself have all combined to create something like a strain of Hitlerism, which at this late hour cannot be reasoned with, but rather only destroyed.

The arguments that say we should just listen to them and figure out what terrible things we’ve done to cause their hatred against us are empty, for just those reasons. The Muslim religion might not be the whole cause of their hatred, but it’s certainly a major part of it. Something has to explain why other Islamic parts of the world, which are far more destitute than the Arab world, aren’t rising up against Americans. This is clearly a special blend of hatred, a refined form that no kind of appeasement or soul-searching could ever remedy.

It’s as simple as this. If you do not follow the tenets of radical Islam, you are the enemy. If you sow the seeds of ‘immorality’ throughout the world, particularly in the form of Hollywood, you are the enemy. (And no, the irony that many of the people making and distributing these ‘immoral’ entertainment products in Hollywood are actually siding with these people is not lost on me.) If you do not follow Islam to the letter yet in any way occupy or exist on ‘holy Muslim land,’ you are the enemy. If you are friends with Israel and support or defend them in any way, you are the enemy.

Such is the extent of their fascism. The tenets of this strict system of beliefs leaves a nation very little room to move without risking the cry of jihad and the slaughter of its citizens. Once again, I find great irony that so many in the political left decried the President’s call that ‘if you are not with us, you are against us’ when, in fact, it was the Islamofascist world that made that cry first, and backed it with bullets and explosives against American lives.

What’s at root here? How do we defeat this enemy and make the world safe for Americans and their interests? As with any enemy, look to what they fear most and you will have the weapon you need to defeat it. That weapon? That fear?

Freedom.

Afghanistan scared them, but not too badly. Always a backwater, leaderless nation of nomads, even the ‘Arab Street’ didn’t place too much importance on free elections and constitutional democracy in a country that has always been run by a system of warlords and tribes.

Iraq, however, is another story. Once a modern, civilized nation, it’s infrastructure crumbled under the heel of Saddam Hussein. Saddam became the worst enemy the Islamofascists had ever known, but they missed that in their ecstasy over his willingness to fund their terror campaigns and provide safe haven to the worst of their mass murdering terrorists such as Abu Nidal. He was their worst enemy because it was his stubborn refusal to give up his aspirations of ruling the region and personally destroying Israel that gave us the needed reason to move in and unseat him. Perhaps they counted on their close friendly relations with morally corrupt governments such as France and Russia, with whom they had deep financial ties. Either way, they ignored the threat from within that was Saddam Hussein, and now we are in Iraq, and Iraq will become a democracy.

Make no mistake and do not misunderstand: this scares the Islamofascists of the world worse than any number of smart bombs or Army Ranger raids. Freedom is the vaccine that can kill the germ of Islamofascism.

Why? Simple: fascism of any sort does not live long under open democracies. When people can live how they choose, worship how they choose, say what they choose, gather when and where they choose, and choose whom their leaders will be, fascism always crumbles and blows away like so much dust. The only way that fascism ever takes hold is after these essential freedoms are removed and replaced by a totalitarian state that takes away all dissenting voice.

The final result of the war in Iraq will be a westernized constitutional democracy smack in the middle of the Arab Islamofascist world. The fascists themselves realize this…why else would they be so eager to spill the blood of their Arab Muslim brothers and sisters in Iraq to try and stop it? The desperate undertaking of incredible new levels of violence in Iraq in the days leading up to Iraqi sovereignty is proof of this. They are simply scared to death of an Iraq lead by Iraqis with democratic freedom at its heart. They know full well that freedom is the cure to their disease, and they will do anything necessary to keep it from taking hold and threatening their control over that part of the world.

They will fail. It is just that simple: they will fail. The writing is already on the wall, the Iraqi people are already governing their own country, with the goal of free elections in record time. (How soon people forget how long we occupied Japan, Germany and Korea before we let their people manage themselves.) They can murder as many Iraqi leaders and civilians as they want, the virus of freedom is now in the wild and it will not be stopped. The Iraqis are free, and it will be some time before they are willing to entertain the notion of allowing another man or regime to take away those freedoms and return to the totalitarian nature of Saddam’s rule. This includes the intended totalitarian ‘sharia’ domination of the region that is the goal of the Islamofascist forces.

The Islamofascists will continue to harass and murder our people for some time. This isn’t an overnight ‘quick fix’. Freedom has to grow, and that takes time. But just like the once great Soviet empire, once a drop of freedom is given, a people will continue to thirst and raise their voices until a greater river of it follows. In time, the nature of free Iraq will erode the totalitarian regimes to its east and west. The people long fooled into serving the freedom-hating fascists will tire under their shackles and demand the same freedoms their neighbors enjoy. They will fail. They will lose. All that we must do is hold the course, stay on target, and continue to foster democracy and combat fascism in every corner of the world, especially the Middle East.

The Democratic Party

Once upon a time, the Democrats were the party of reason, of fairness, of equality. While they were born out of the darkest hatred (originally founded by the Ku Klux Klan to shore up their rule over the post-war south) they turned around an frequently fought on the side of right in the middle 20th century, even if their solutions were misguided and shortsighted. The initial FDR and JFK still meet with reverence in the hearts and minds of most Americans, despite the faults of both men.

We’ve now entered into another dark time for this political party, one that was ushered in during the dark days of the Clinton presidency, rife with lies and scandals. This is a party that has turned their back on conventional politics. They’ve chosen the path of megalomania and hatred instead of rational debate and statement of opposing positions.

Columnist and lifelong Democrat Bob Just wrote an excellent essay on the state of his party. He puts it far better than I can:

Now, 25 years later, I am ashamed to be a Democrat. More than that, I have come to fear my own party. Hatred and corruption - the roots of fascism - are on the march in America as they have never been before, and leading this march is the Democratic Party. Increasingly, mainstream Democrats are uncomfortable with what we see in our party. We may not have a real name for it, but we know it is dangerous.

Somewhere during the Clinton administration, the Democratic Party had a shift in both tone and intent. Perhaps because they had dominated congress for so long yet lost it, even with a sitting, popular Democrat president. Regardless of the cause, the intent shifted from representing those in the country who did not agree with the Republican platform to representing themselves and their own quest for power.

As Just states in his article, it is clear that the majority of the Democratic party believes that they know best, they should guide the country regardless of what the citizens actually want, because in their wisdom they can guide us to the promised land. However, they are so zealous in this goal that they have continually degraded to the point that hatred and vitriol are the only intellectual weapons they have left.

Their platform today is simple: we hate George W. Bush. You should vote for us because we are not George W. Bush, who is to be hated. If you don’t hate George W. Bush, you are a fool and need us to govern your life as you are clearly too stupid to manage that yourself.

As Just says, there are many Democrats feeling this way, but none in power within the party. Their thirst for control and power is such that they will resort to any lengths to gain that power. Repeatedly, the Democratic Party has either supported attacks or directly attacked the war effort. Not in the form of civil disagreement, but in ways that can do nothing but undermine the effort and jeopardize the lives of our troops. Based upon their public statements of record, the hypocrisy here is grand. I won’t repeat them here, but the record of their statements during the Clinton years regarding Saddam Hussein are very clear…and directly opposed to what they’re saying today.

This hypocrisy is not one of changed minds or tempered emotions. It is rooted in a single, uniting cause: the war could help Bush, so we must do our best to sabotage it. Anything that could help their opponents stay in power longer is open for attack, no matter what their personal or past beliefs are on those topics. Their hunger for power and their hatred for President Bush drives them now, not their honest desire to do things differently than the other side of the Senate floor.

Once again, what’s at the heart of their hatred? The fear of freedom. When Americans think for themselves, they don’t necessarily tow the party line. While the Republican party at least claims to represent personal responsibility and freedom, the Democrats make no effort to hide their intent: government knows best, it should decide your life for you. Without government’s guiding hand and support, you would be wallowing in the dirt, uneducated, without hope of finding personal happiness. Government intervention and ‘support’ inherently comes with a loss of freedom. When government dictates our destiny and ignores the will of the people, it becomes no different than any other fascism. This is what the Democrats want. Regardless of their stated good intentions, they must be stopped. Even if we believe that they don’t want power for power’s sake, that they honestly want the best for every citizen of the nation, they still must be stopped. At risk is the fabric that holds the nation together: freedom.

They must not be allowed to dictate our social and economic structure. They must not be allowed to continually place the wishes of tiny, vocal minorities over the beliefs of the rest of the nation. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and neither of those concepts have a hard time bubbling to the surface of the nation…we do not need the Democrats dictating how we all should think when most of us simply disagree with them. We should not allow them to talk down to the nation as if it were a giant day care center full of rampaging toddlers.

Regardless of their motivation, their intent is clear: regain power, whatever the price. Freedom is their enemy, because we have the freedom to refuse them. We have the ability to send them packing. We have repeatedly chosen to do just that in the last few elections, but that has only spurred them to lower depths of villainy in their quest.

As with the Islamofascists, they will lose. Unfortunately, it might not be immediate. We might have to bear the burden of the ignorance of the populace and give the Democrats another chance to prove what they have become. Their hatred is strong, and it’s effects are clear. People are falling for the lie every day, the lie that President Bush is every terrible, horrible thing the Democrats make him out to be. If enough people fall for their tactics, we might wind up in quite a mess come November. Even if we do, however, freedom will win out. If they attempt to take away too much, I believe that it will only sponsor outrage from Americans throughout the land. Regardless, four years of these ideologically empty people ruling their way should certainly be enough to convince those who might fall prey to their hatred that they made a terrible mistake and will not repeat it again. It happened here in California, it could happen to the nation.

The ‘New Left’

The final enemy of freedom I’m going to discuss here is what I’ll call the ‘New Left’. Not a single source of aggression against freedom, but rather a conglomeration of individuals from nearly every ideological area of American life. Some are malicious, while others are benign but misguided. Some openly seek the destruction of the America that is, others simply don’t stop to realize the effect their actions will have on freedom as it stands now.

Leading the rallying cry of the New Left we have a series of fanatics who have departed from any course of rational comment or open discussion of politics in America. We have Michael Moore, the current standard bearer, waving his banner of lies and deception, carefully crafting his public statements before American news outlets while openly wishing for the open defeat and destruction of America both abroad and on his website.

There are many others who join him in his efforts. Much of Hollywood and the media elite openly back him and his desires. So twisted is their concept of America that they’d rather see it destroyed than continue on in a way that does not suit their own ideals or lack thereof. They’ve forgotten the very concept of patriotism yet vigorously defend themselves against anyone who questions their own patriotism. Indeed, simply because they call what they desire ‘America’ they feel they can lay claim to the same patriotism displayed by our forefathers in building and defending this nation.

What they call ‘America’ is nothing of the sort. Rather, it’s a place where their desires dictate that of the citizenry. Where socialism replaces capitalism. Where a monarchy of ‘enlightened’ elitists guide those of us ‘lucky’ enough to live under their regime. They are a group that cries out when their ‘rights’ are impugned, but are the fastest to attack the rights of anyone who doesn’t agree with their view on how the world should be run.

We also have the anti-war crowd in this bunch of the ‘New Left’. Decades of anti-Semitic, ‘multiculturalist’ domination of our nation’s high schools and universities have left us with a young, angry group of people who have absolutely no basic knowledge of what they’re saying, but they fervently defend their ‘views’ and just as passionately attack any who would disagree. When you have groups of ‘peace’ protesters spitting on those who disagree, you really have to stop and wonder if they have any concept of what peace really is.

Time and time again we’ve seen these protesters not calling for an end to war, not calling for a time of peace or a peaceful resolution of the ongoing conflicts. All too often we’ve seen them call for the deaths of US soldiers. We’ve watched them call for appeasement in the face of open threats against us, even at the sake of our own sovereignty. We’ve watched them protest in favor of Palestinian terrorists, their open, blatant anti-Semitism completely unchecked. These are a people who have been taught to be angry at something that they don’t even understand. Once again taking the path of all fascists, they are simply told whatever disinformation their ‘teachers’ felt was necessary to rally them into a frothing, angry mob. It is hatred, pure and simple. Blind, stupid, unthinking hatred. When confronted about their beliefs they inevitably fall back on the rhetoric they were given: Israel are jackbooted thugs seeking to destroy the Palestinian people who just want a place to live, George Bush is a moron and a villain who just wants to suspend the constitution and take absolute power, US troops are kill-happy murderers who deserve every bit of violence brought upon them in Iraq. Any reasonable person can see that these are absolute lies, but these misguided people have been indoctrinated so thoroughly that they believe them with every fiber of their being.

Finally, we have the real bulk of the New Left. These first two components of the New Left are relatively small in size. What’s growing by leaps and bounds is this third contingency: the ‘New Libertarians’.

As the damage of the first two groups in the New Left begins to show it’s real effect, we’re seeing more and more of these folks. Hailing from every corner of the political ideological map, they frequently lay claim to the Libertarian party, even thought that party (what of it there is) doesn’t even claim to cover all of their wide-ranging beliefs. The ‘New Libertarian’s don’t really have much to do with the party at all, even those that do lay claim to it as their affiliation. Rather, the title ‘New Libertarian’ refers to their relentless pursuit of liberties that, for one reason or another, have been disallowed by the laws of the nation. As with the Democrats, their high-minded discourse on controversial subjects has degraded to open hatred for the government and a near-fanatical paranoia of anything related to government.

On one side, you have the atheists, so bent on destroying all faith and religious influence on the nation that they are willing to side with anyone who will help them achieve their goal. On another, you have the disenfranchised that are set on eradicating any limitation on their actions. Anytime government tells them that they are not allowed to do something, they jump up like rebellious children shouting ‘you’re not the boss of me’ and bemoaning that ‘Big Brother’ has taken their freedoms away.

In the middle you have conservatives who have become so afraid of government that their only solution to it is it do away with all or most of it. Convinced by the conspiracy theories pervasive on the Internet and some of talk radio, they are the new version of the ‘a commie behind every bush’ conservatives of the McCarthy era. Paranoid and constantly afraid, they blame every ill in society on government and suspect government conspiracies in any negative event in public life.

On the far left, you have the Green Party and other environmentalist wackos who seek to destroy anything that threatens what they hold dear, even at the loss of the economy or the nation itself. From the anarchists who make violent attacks at any global economic structure to the Earth First eco-terrorists, these people hold a specific ideal close to their hearts and are willing to fight for it. Unfortunately, these ideals are fanatical and destructive, seeking to protect something other than civilization and humanity. All too often they openly espouse violence against humans over their disagreement on world economics or whether or not tree cutting or oil drilling will be allowed in regions they seek to protect.

The common thread here is simple: these are all people who have become lost in the political process and now see the only solution to be the destruction of part or all of the government as we know it. The freedoms they cling to so tightly are not freedoms at all, but rather crimes or impositions upon another section of the citizenry, perhaps even the majority of them. It doesn’t matter to these folks that their desired freedoms would bring chaos or harm to the lives of their neighbors, it’s their right to have them. I’m reminded of the exchange in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when the character of Stan insists that he be called ‘Loretta’ because he wants to have babies. When others protest, his response is ‘don’t you go oppressing me!’ Even though this ‘right’ he’s laying claim to is ridiculous to any casual observer, somewhere down the line he’s been convinced that his own personal desires are worth more than even reality itself: it’s his right, and he’ll be damned if anyone tells him otherwise.

Once again, the basis of this is a fear of freedom. Michael Moore and the far-left fanatics fear freedom because it allows the nation as a whole to decide that their way of thinking is incorrect. It allows people to disagree with them and live how they choose. The anti-war crowd fears freedom because it is infectious and self-perpetuating. Frequently, it requires conflict and war. It also stands in the face of the ideals they’ve had driven into their heads over the years, as no freedom-loving individual could fault the Israelis for trying to preserve their nation and indeed their very lives. No freedom-loving individual could cheer on the forces trying to keep freedom out of Iraq and Afghanistan. No freedom-loving individual could stand next to the totalitarian regimes of the Islamofascists that they regularly side with. Finally, the ‘New Libertarians’ fear freedom because it allows the nation as a whole to decide that they cannot do what they so desperately desire to do. We can tell them, as a democratic majority, that the acts they wish to take part in are not acceptable to us and if they wish to engage in them, they’ll have to go somewhere else. Freedom only comes with civil order, which allows every man to do what they want without infringing upon the lives of others. If civil order is removed, soon everyone would be killing each other over their ‘freedom to choose’ what they do.

As with the first two enemies of freedom, the New Left will also lose. Truth wins out in a free society, where information and open public discourse is allowed, so Michael Moore and his fanatics will eventually fall on their own swords as history shines the light of truth on their lies. Freedom is a virus, so the anti-war types will lose in the end. The countries that once held our enemies have now tasted the sweet nectar of freedom and they will not stop seeking out new sources of it. The New Libertarians will lose, because at our heart we are a moral people. We stumble, we make mistakes, but in the end we choose to protect the rights and freedoms of the nation as a whole rather than give in and allow small groups the ‘freedom’ to do what they will, no matter the cost to the rest of us. Despite the sad state of the nation, we still choose to be a Christian nation by a majority. We chose to elect a Christian president. This offends some who are not Christian, or who fanatically seek to eradicate all semblance of religion from the state. In reality, they pose a much greater risk to religious freedom in doing so, as our right to follow the moral code of ethics of our choosing is quickly being removed by those same people who claim to be trying to preserve their freedom of faith. I believe that in the end, freedom will win out, and the nation will still have the choice to take the path it chooses, regardless of whether it follows a Judeo-Christian belief system or not. Rather than having that path taken from them, the nation will decide to follow whatever path they choose, in true freedom.

In every case, freedom will win out…as long as we continue to protect it.

You simply can’t put that genie back in the bottle. It was freed 228 years ago, and it will continue to spread as long as some people exist who remember what it was about in the first place. If we ignore it, if we become defeatists who are willing to compromise freedom because we see it’s perfect form as a lost cause, then we risk losing everything we’ve fought for in the last 228 years. We must remain strong. We must stay the course. We must make our stand and refuse to be moved by any force, from within or without.

How do we do this? Remember. Remember what we’ve accomplished. Remember that we’ve become the strongest and best nation on the planet by God’s wonderful gift of freedom. Remember how many people have given their lives to maintain it, and to sow it’s seeds throughout the world. Remember the concepts of honor and integrity, of idealism and faith. Live them in your lives, keep them in your hearts and never, ever let anyone take them away from you. It’s through these high ideals that we preserve our freedom, that we make it invulnerable to all attacks. As long as it lives in our hearts and shines in our lives, it cannot die. By living in unity with the common goal of freedom we can shine on another 228 years, and another beyond that, for as long as God sees fit to keep us here. With our eyes set on Him and our hearts devoted to the notion of freedom that is embodied in this amazing country of ours, we cannot and will not fail.

Freedom will not die and cannot lose…as long as it remains strong in the hearts and lives of true patriots who love their country and are willing to sacrifice everything so that others will carry on the dream that is America.

Happy birthday, America. I love you.